Kindness

I am often blown away by the thoughtfulness, kindness, and generosity of others. To think of others is wonderful. A kind act, no matter how small it may seem to you, can be tremendous and reassuring to others. That's how I strive to be each day - thoughtful of others. Okay in all honesty, I fail miserably some days. So I try to be as thoughtful as possible to those in my life and then if I can, I try to reach beyond my little circle of life. A smile. A hello. A hug for someone who is down. A little note to tell someone they are awesome. Stopping instead of breezing by when you ask someone how they are and they say, "Not so great." These are things we can do and it's so easy and costs nothing but a few seconds, maybe a few minutes, of our whole, entire, long life. But think what it does for the other person. I have been fortunate in my life. I have family and friends who love me for me and nurture the silly, crazy, click-happy me that bubbles up each morning. I have people who notice that if they don't hear me, then something must be up. I have so much I want to do and even when I'm pooped, I think how nice it is to have the freedom to do so much - anything really. I try not to take these things for granted and I relish each person, each activity, each minute. One day I won't be able to do that so I'd rather go to sleep exhausted than being bored in life. Not sure how anyone can be bored in life but people say that quite often.

Here are two examples of people making the extra effort in life when they didn't have to and in the total span of perhaps minutes in their lives, they made a huge impact on me.

Last weekend at the Come & Take It Festival, a customer (Anne) saw my Think Pink bracelet and chose to pay cash rather than by credit so that we could keep all the money for GBR. I told her she didn't have to do that but she told me she is a breast cancer survivor and she wanted to support us so I told her my sister had been diagnosed with it and we shared a few minutes with each other in supoort of Thuy. Anne came back later that day and she came behind the tables to put a necklace on me that she had bought with Thuy and me in mind. I was so touched and I will never forget Ann and the time she took out of her day to talk with me and to bring me this gift.

And yesterday a good friend told us he bought a pillow with my sister in mind. What touches me is that these two people don't even know Thuy but they think about her. They pray for her. And I am so incredibly moved by the goodness of those actions. It fills me with hope in a world where the negative things are in the forefront of media so much. Too much. So I'm tuning in to my own channel where 95% of the news is good. Or better than good, even.